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THYROID GLAND. 375
importance is that the injurious results from removal of the thyroids
can be counteracted by the introduction of artificial extracts of the
thyroid gland into the body or by feeding with thyroid glands.
Of the disturbances in metabolism which occur on the extirpation
or reduction of the thyroid function (athyreoidismus or hypothyreoid-
ismus) we must especially mention the reduction in the protein catabolism
which in a starving dog without thyroids may fall to about one-half of
the starvation protein metabolism in a normal dog of the same size
(Falta and collaborators J
). The reverse is observed when large quan-
tities of the thyroid gland substance is fed, namely, a strong increase in
the protein metabolism, besides certain other symptoms. Basedow’s
disease is also considered as a form of hyperthyreoidismus which, by an
increased activity of the glands, brings about an overproduction of the
specific secretion. There does not seem to be any doubt that the thyroid
glands stand in close relation to other endocrinic glands although for the
present we are unable to survey this very complicated condition. One
side of this reciprocal action with other organs, which is of special impor-
tance, is the relation of the thyroids to glycosuria, which will be discussed
in a following chapter.
The glands with internal secretion, the so-called endocrinic glands,
to which the adrenals belong, which will be discussed below, and the
hypophysis, are of especially great interest because of the reciprocal
action which they exert among each other and with other organs. A
chemical correlation exists between different organs, of a kind, that
bodies which are formed in one organ can awaken or regulate the func-
tions of another organ or other organs. These chemically active sub-
stances, which awaken or regulate the activity of other organs have
been given the group name hormone (6pfLaw = I awaken or excite) by Star-
ling and to this group belong the specifically active constituents of the
endocrinic glands.
It is impossible for the present to state anything about the kind of
bodies having a specific action in the thyroid gland or anything about the
importance of the bases found by certain investigators, such as S. Frank-
el, Drechsel, and Kocher,2
as these bodies have not been characterized
sufficiently. It seems proved that the specifically active substance is, as
first shown by Notkin 3 and Oswald,4
a protein substance: Notkin’s
thyreoproteid, Oswald’s thyreoglobulin . This does not conflict with the views
1
Eppinger, Falta and Rudinger, Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 66.
5
Frankel, Wein. med. Blatter, 1895 and 1896; Drechsel and Kocher, CentralbL
f. Physiol., 9, 705.
3
Wien. med. Wochenschr., 1895, and Virehow’s Arch., 144, Suppl., 224.
* Zeitschr. f. physioi. Ohem., 32, and Bioch. CentralbL, 1, 249.
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